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Saturday, 1 August 2015

I fear another crafting addiction

I’ve always kept a diary with important dates and events I need to remember. I also write lists most days to remind me of what I would like to get done or needs to be done on any particular day. How many of you do the same? How many of you decorate the pages of the diary/journal/list? Well that’s something that I have suddenly become aware of although it has been going on in the crafting world for quite a while now but I’ve obviously been slow to pick up on it!

I guess I first became aware of it when I subscribed to the Lollipop Box club – Lisa is a great planner and list maker and I found the explanation on her blog very interesting. Running her business obviously needs a lot of organisational skills and planning and Lisa is an avid planner but I love the way that she also takes the time to make her planning fun.

Another blog that I have come across which also runs a monthly subscription kit for planners/journals/stationary addicts is Anna of Mrs Brimbles. Anna has lots of interesting articles on her blog along with links to many other companies who design materials for planner/journal decoration.

I’d never thought of doing this before and some people might think why would you want to anyway, but being a crafter the idea really appeals to me.

So I have looked online at various planners and took the plunge and ordered myself a journal planner from Plum Paper Designs. Each one is individually made up starting in whichever month you would like – they do take a few weeks to come through so I opted to start mine in October. They have several different types of planners but I have gone for one of their regular planners. Even these planners have a choice of cover design and how you want your pages laid out for you. I’m really looking forward to receiving mine in October. Can you guess which cover I have gone for?
In the meantime while I am waiting for my planner to arrive we had to go into town today and I decided to treat myself to a new filofax type diary/organiser. This is a lot smaller than the Plum Paper Designs planner will be but it will fit nicely into my handbag.

Once I have added the information for each week I will then decorate the pages using up lots of elements I have received from both the Lollipop Box club and my own craft stash. Here is a photo of my pages for next week with just the written details in – tomorrow I plan to add some decoration to it and pretty it up – some me time where I can just have fun and relax.
The bookcases that arrived yesterday have been assembled and the books that were in the cubes below are now in the new storage units. This has meant I now have two cube storage units to fill up with my crafting stash. One of the units is going to contain my plastic 12x12 boxes which I store most of my wooden stamps in – yes I have even more stamps. So far I have managed to catalogue 8 boxes worth of stamps and have some very inky fingers from all the cleaning of the stamps with baby wipes. I really must try and find my Stampin’ Up! stampin’ scrub.
The other unit I am hoping to put my A4 papers which are in magazine type holders and my embossing folders which are in baskets.

We didn’t have much success in finding a suitable desk while we were in town so a re-think on that is needed. After the little bit of shopping required around town we decided to wander around the Barbican and look in the art galleries and shops that are there. We’ve ordered a quirky print to go in our living room when it is finally decorated – we may even get another one to go with it at some stage. It might not be to everyone’s taste but we liked it. It’s a collection by Simon Clarke and called Fab Four. It should hopefully be ready to collect in two weeks time. We also treated ourselves to a spot of lunch.

Alice got some more stitches added to her today but tomorrow will see me concentrating on the Cornish Cottage Sampler which has been very much neglected over the past couple of weeks.

I am good at planning but utterly lack in executing and even more in updating the lists. I have had many planners earlier (not the decorative ones) and they slowly turned into scribbling notepads:) Looking forward to see your beautiful journal:)